In Korea, a mainstream publisher of popular and science texts, Book 21 Publishing Group, has brought out an edition of Explore Evolution, a textbook presenting both sides of the evolution debate. The translation was done by a pair of Korean academics, Seung Yup Lee and Eung Bin Kim, whose scientific specialties are respectively in biomimetics and environmental microbiology. Both teach at universities, Sogang and Yonsei, ranked in Korea’s top ten.

Dr. Lee’s research fuels his questions about macroevolution. His work on the amazing “natural design” of the South American Hercules beetle and its humidity-sensing shell was highlighted in Nature. In the Preface to the Korean Explore Evolution, Lee advocates investigating “alternative theories” to undirected Darwinian evolution.

Korea also has its own Research Association for Intelligent Design, with an impressive masthead of biologists, chemists and other scientists at top research institutions. Sogang University in Seoul hosts an Annual Symposium on Intelligent Design. The event has included presentations on William Dembski and Robert Marks’s Law of Conservation of Information and on protein translation as evidence of intelligent design.

[…]Producer and director Lad Allen had Unlocking the Mystery of Life and Privileged Planet dubbed into Cantonese and Mandarin, moving a hundred thousand copies into China via Hong Kong. He estimates that three or four times that many DVDs were illegally pirated and copied.

[…]Illustra has completed a Japanese translation of The Privileged Planet, lip-synced by Japanese actors in Tokyo. But Unlocking the Mystery of Life is Illustra’s most-translated film, with editions in Khmer (Cambodian), Thai, Sri Lankan, and Mongolian as well as a variety of European languages.

On the book-publishing side, Center for Science & Culture senior fellow Paul Chien has been largely responsible for introducing intelligent design to China. A biologist at the University of San Francisco, Chien has translated Phil Johnston’sDarwin on Trial and Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box among other titles.

He recently finished work on Denyse O’Leary’s By Design Or By Chance?, to be followed by Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell.

It’s good that there are still some places left where a person can ask questions about what natural causes can do and what intelligent causes can do.

Thousands of pills filled with powdered human flesh have been discovered by customs officials in South Korea, it was revealed today.

The capsules are in demand because they are viewed as being a medicinal ‘cure-all’.

The grim trade is being run from China where corrupt medical staff are said to be tipping off medical companies when babies are aborted or delivered still-born.

The tiny corpses are then bought, stored in household refrigerators in homes of those involved in the trade before they are removed and taken to clinics where they are placed in medical drying microwaves.

Once the skin is tinder dry, it is pummelled into powder and then processed into capsules along with herbs to disguise the true ingredients from health investigators and customs officers.

[…]According to customs agents, 35 smuggling attempts have been made since August last year involving more than 17,000 capsules disguised as ‘stamina boosters’.

Hospitals and abortion clinics in China reportedly pass the remains onto drugs companies when a baby is stillborn or aborted, the South Korean SBS documentary team reported last year.

The San Francisco Times reported that tests carried out on the pills confirmed they were made up of 99.7 per cent human remains.

The tests were successfully able to establish the genders of the babies used.

There is a huge demand for the pills which are thought to enhance stamina. Microwave-dried placenta is also sought after for its alleged ‘medicinal’ benefits.

However, in reality the human flesh capsules contain super-bacteria and other harmful ingredients.

The biggest free-trade pacts since NAFTA were passed by the House Wednesday night, with the Senate likely to follow. As a result, America will reap 250,000 jobs and $13 billion in exports. Where are the celebrations?

The strangest aspect of the passage of free trade treaties with Colombia, South Korea and Panama, with final votes taken after five long years, is the disconnect between the big economic gains expected for the U.S., and the reticence of congressional Democrats and the White House, both of which finally got something right on the economy.

As we went to press, the pacts had been passed by the House, with the Senate expected to vote soon. With bipartisanship like that, lawmakers should be cheering loudly for a true “jobs bill” that costs nothing.

Yet as a Democratic aide told Roll Call on Wednesday, “Republicans don’t want to give the president a victory, Democrats are split and everyone is distracted.”

Excuse us, but this is some of the best economic news in three years. It deserves a victory dance.

It’s a fact these treaties will bring new orders for factories, save family farms, strengthen strategic alliances with countries well worth having as allies, and open up breathtaking new opportunities in fast-growing markets. It needs to be acknowledged.

[…]President Obama paid lip service to the treaties, but wasted nearly three years attaching protectionist amendments and dithering. It harmed the economy and never changed this fact: Free trade had to pass if there was to be a real recovery.

Obama appointees at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have not only blocked Boeing from making planes in South Carolina, but they have greased the speed of union elections, made decertification votes impossible, changed the requirement that a majority of workers vote for a union, and required almost every workplace in America to put posters up advising workers of their unionization rights.

The Obama Administration claims to want to double exports and support free trade, but it took it nearly three years to send the pending trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea to Congress. Which means that in all this time American companies have been paying higher tariffs for exports.

The Obama Administration has proposed 219 new rules affecting industries, each of which will cost at least $100 million to comply. While the Washington legal business is growing, every industry and business is affected, scared, and confused by the massive new proposals. Small businesses are especially overwhelmed and must hire lawyers to understand and comply with the massive amount of new regulation.

The Obama crown-jewel “achievements” of the new health care and Dodd-Frank financial laws adversely affect almost every American business, totaled almost 3,000 pages of statutory language, and will result in huge costs on employers.

Let’s hope the Senate passes these deals and Obama signs it. We need lower priced goods in a recession, and we need more markets to sell into. If this passes, it will be the first pro-growth action taken by the administration in three years.

Americans are angry and with good reason. They are hurting from unemployment, uncertainty in stock market investments and declining retirement funds. And they are weary of waiting for a real workable plan to get us out of this rut.

This is not a time to try the same failed policies of borrowing, debt and calls for tax increases. So we offer these ideas as President Barack Obama prepares to address Congress Thursday if he really wants to make some major bipartisan moves to get our country moving again.

[…]First, allow U.S. employers to repatriate $1 trillion sitting in overseas banks. The current tax rate of 35 percent is a huge barrier blocking those dollars from being invested in jobs, boosting the stock market and raising the value of retirement funds.

Some companies use armies of attorneys and accountants to find ways to cut those taxes, followed by the Internal Revenue Service tracking them down. Stop the nonsense. Offer a lower tax rate, perhaps 15 percent, for a limited time (maybe even a lower rate if the money is invested in job creation or in purchasing U.S. goods).

[…]Second, freeze the massive number of proposed regulations until Congress can review and approve them. Regulations cost U.S. employers more than $1.75 trillion per year. Federal agencies are moving forward with more than 4,257 new regulations that will add tens of billions in regulatory costs — more than tripling the burden of agency mandates from 2009.Employers are worried how this tsunami of new regulations will overwhelm their businesses so they are holding back on growth and hiring. Unless a regulation is absolutely necessary to protect the public’s health and safety, it should be stopped now. Enactment of House Resolution 10, the REINS Act, would require congressional review and approval for any mandate costing the economy more than $100 million annually.

Third, pass our bipartisan Infrastructure Jobs and Energy Independence Act (H.R. 1861), to expand safe offshore oil and gas exploration, create 1.2 million new jobs annually and launch $8 trillion in economic output. Our bipartisan bill dedicates a portion of up to $3.7 trillion in federal oil and gas revenues from the new exploration for investments in new energy technologies, power generation and grid modernization to help put us on a path to energy independence.

[…]Finally, to preserve a free global market for trade, we must hold foreign nations accountable to abide by international agreements. This year, America will lose its position as the global manufacturing leader to China, in large part because Beijing illegally gives its exports a 20 percent to 40 percent discount by manipulating and devaluing its currency.

Another good idea would be to sign the free trade deals with Panama, South Korea and Colombia. Heritage explains what would happen if we did.

Excerpt:

The Obama Administration—after allowing U.S. free trade agreements (FTAs) with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama to languish unapproved for nearly four years—lately appears eager to push Congress to ratify all three soon. The problem now is that some in Congress are trying to make their approval contingent upon an extension of the Trade Adjustment Act (TAA).

That would be a mistake. The three FTAs are intrinsically worth passing without any strings. Congress should act on them without further delay.

The Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) would be America’s largest free trade agreement in Asia. It would increase U.S. exports by an estimated $10 billion annually, increase U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by $11 billion, and add 70,000 U.S. jobs—all without a dime in federal government spending.[1] The accord would also serve as a powerful statement of the U.S. commitment to East Asia at a time when many perceive declining American interest, presence, and influence in the region. The FTA would strengthen U.S. commercial ties and expand the bilateral relationship with South Korea beyond traditional military ties or the North Korean threat.

[…]Rejecting KORUS would disadvantage U.S. companies by locking in discriminatory trade barriers. During the four years the agreement was held hostage by special interest groups and congressional protectionists, the U.S. lost $40 billion in potential exports. American companies continued to lose market share to foreign competitors. The U.S. used to be South Korea’s largest trade partner, but in less than a decade it has been displaced by China, the European Union, and Japan. As Korea’s market opens further, it will be foreign competitors and not U.S. companies that will benefit.

[…]Until this year, the Obama Administration and congressional leadership took its orders on the U.S.–Colombia FTA from protectionist U.S. labor unions and U.S. anti-globalization groups, joined by far-left allies in the region, who succeeded in delaying congressional approval of the FTA. The cost of delay has been significant. So far, according to the Latin America Trade Coalition’s “Colombia Tariff Ticker,”[2] U.S. companies have paid $3.5 billion (as of this writing) in unnecessary duties to the Colombian treasury in the more than 1,600 days since the FTA was signed.

That $3.5 billion has translated into higher prices in Colombia for U.S. goods and services, which are now at a competitive disadvantage in the Colombian market. It has also meant reduced profits for U.S. companies and lost jobs at home.

There are plenty of good ideas from people who live in the real world where real economic laws apply. Keynesianism has been tried since Pelosi and Reid were elected in 2007. It has failed. We need to move on to what works.

While America has stopped production of its stealth fighter, China prepares to challenge U.S. air supremacy in the Western Pacific with its own.

China is on another Long March, one it hopes will lead to military supremacy over the U.S. at least in the Western Pacific. It is deploying a carrier-killing mobile missile, the Dong Feng 21D, and is expected to launch its first aircraft carrier this year, the refurbished ex-Soviet carrier Varyag. China is also conducting preflight tests on a fifth-generation stealth fighter expected to challenge the best the U.S. has to offer.

Photographs reportedly showing China’s J-20 undergoing high-speed taxi tests at the Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute in western China have appeared, first on unofficial Chinese and foreign defense-related websites. Such tests are the last stage before actual flight tests.

[…]China’s stealth fighter appears to have “the potential to be a competitor with the F-22 (Raptor) and to be decisively superior to the F-35,” according to Richard Fisher, a Chinese military expert with the International Strategy and Assessment Center in Washington. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the designated replacement for the Raptor, has had its troubles. The general in charge of the program was fired amid concerns of spiraling costs and program delays.

It was felt we couldn’t afford both an F-22 dedicated to air superiority and the F-35, even though the latter is vastly inferior in air-to-air combat and ground defense penetration. The Raptor is perhaps the only plane that could evade sophisticated surface-to-air missile defense systems such as Russia’s S-300 and S-400.

“Only the F-22 can survive in airspace defended by increasingly capable surface-to-air missiles,” declares Air Force Association President Mike Dunn. The F-22 can fly 300 to 400 mph faster and two miles higher than the F-35. The F-35 is cheaper, but you get what you pay for. And it’s still under development. The F-22 is operational now, when we need it.

[…]During recent military exercises with South Korea, the F-22 was conspicuous by its absence. Deploying a squadron of F-22s to Osan Air Base in South Korea would send a powerful “keep off the grass” message to Beijing and Pyongyang. So why haven’t we done it? Why haven’t we sent the world’s most advanced combat aircraft into any potential combat zone?

Perhaps because letting the F-22 Raptor prove its worth would be a visible reminder of the stupidity of building only 187 of them in a world where the Russians and Chinese are building their own stealth fighters, and thugocracies like Iran and North Korea go nuclear. It would be a reminder that the once-feared arsenal of democracy needs some serious retooling.

Let me be clear. The F-35 is overpriced junk. We should immediately resume, and even max out, production of the F-22 Raptor. That’s what Obama would be doing if he cared a whit about national security, and didn’t have his head stuck in the sand. We need more F-22s, and we need them yesterday and we need them deployed to South Korea and Japan yesterday.